Ever since we introduced our original platform, the biggest complaint has been the absence of a plank on foreign policy. This was originally left out because not only was it incredibly difficult to draft, but our thoughts at the time were on emphasizing where we thought the LP was falling short, and war was assumed to be a place of universal agreement within the party. However, not only have we come to rethink that assumption, but we have come to view our platform as a list of our priorities instead of just how we are unique. To that end, after a conversation with Scott Horton, we have come to recognize that not only is war important, it’s our comparative advantage in politics, and thus it needs to be a priority.
This served as a motivation to revamp the rest of our planks as well, as another criticism was they were too long. Along with rewording them and making several syntax corrections, we also reordered the planks themselves to follow a more logical progression. Finally, we removed the “Decorum” plank as decorum isn’t a policy position but a code of conduct, and added our own version of an “Omissions” plank to clarify that our platform serves to list our priorities, not our entire philosophy.